Pistachio-Raspberry Tea Cakes

We are rapidly approaching the end of the simple and sweet section of the cookbook. I couldn't believe it myself until I looked ahead a few pages and saw that I only have 2 to go after these pistachio-raspberry tea cakes. It's exciting to finish a section, I feel like I'm really making progress and accomplishing something. No, it's certainly nothing as noble as curing a disease or saving the environment, but a goal is a goal... at least I have one.

I will confess that I wasn't excited about making these cupcakes. As mentioned several times before I'm not a big fan of pistachios and I don't hate raspberries, but I don't love them either. I prefer them in a pureed or syrup form. Like a garnish on a dessert, or perhaps in yogurt. I also figured that not many people would be interested in eating them, including myself, so they would be hard to get rid of.

The first thing I did to start making these cupcakes was to shell (I couldn't find pistachios that had already been shelled) and chop the pistachios. I had bought a small container of pistachios that I thought would be enough for the recipe, which was a little over a cup. I got about 3/4 cup of shelled pistachios. Not enough. I thought I might have an already opened bag of pistachios in the cupboard from a recent attempt at healthy snacking (I just can't do pistachios, I really tried, I swear) but I searched through the cupboard and couldn't find it. However a day later when I was back in that same cupboard looking for something else I found them... on the bottom shelf, right in front of my face. Clearly a future as a detective is not in the cards for me. Since I couldn't find anymore pistachios in the cupboard when I looked for them the first time I decided that I would just cut the recipe in half. Something I've thought of doing before when I had a recipe I wasn't excited about, but this was the first time I actually did it. I had enough pistachios to give me a 1/2 cup for the recipe and enough left over to use for the garnish. It would also be less work and I would have less to eat/get rid of. Everybody wins.

Happy with my decision to cut the recipe in half I proceeded. This recipe was the first I've used that calls for everything to be put together in a food processor. I almost didn't use it since I was afraid that it wouldn't work and blend everything well enough. But, part of this process is trying something new so I forged ahead. I ground the pistachios with the sugar and salt. I did a couple doses since after the first one there were still a couple of larger pieces of pistachio left. I wanted everything to be as fine as possible. I followed the same process for the remaining ingredients and turned out getting a normal looking batter. Though once everything was combined I did use a spoon to make sure everything was really combined since some of the liquid was at the bottom of the food processor and not completely mixed. Truthfully I think cutting the recipe in half was a stroke of luck (and maybe brilliance) since I'm not sure making a full batch would have fit in my food processor.

I filled the liners (which had to be sprayed with cooking spray first, something I've never had to do before) 3/4 full. This gave me 6 cupcakes... perfect! I was so excited to only have 6 cupcakes. I baked the cupcakes for 28 total minutes with a turn halfway through the baking time. They may have turned out a little browner than I normally like. But they were by no means too done or burnt. They also looked quite beautiful. The colors were really nice. I can't say the same for the taste.

The batter was pretty good, but I really didn't enjoy the end product. I'm not sure if it was the combination of the pistachios and the raspberries, perhaps it was the consistency. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but something wasn't quite right. I only ended up eating the portion of the cupcake that I took apart to take the photos. I even tried to go back a few days later when I was craving something sweet to give them another try and I only took a bite. They just weren't for me. I ended up throwing them away. I knew there was no way Bobby was going to eat them, fruit and nuts together, the cupcakes didn't stand a chance with him. I didn't think anyone at work would be interested in them either, especially since they were a couple days old at that point. I only like to provide baked goods when they're as fresh as possible. If I don't want to eat them, I can't expect other people to be interested.

Iced Pistachio Cupcakes

I'm not very familiar with pistachio nuts. I know I've tried them before and I know Khloe and Lamar have a commercial about them, but all I really remember is being a little kid and sucking on the nuts when they were still in the shells to get the salt, and then spitting the entire thing out. Yes, it was a total waste of perfectly good pistachios. I did try them this time around and they're not too bad. I definitely prefer them salted and roasted, and they're definitely not my favorite, but I can eat them without wanting to spit them out. I've grown up a lot. Despite the fact that I can now consume more than just the salt on pistachio nuts, I wasn't super excited to give iced pistachio cupcakes (no link again, sorry, I don't know what's gotten into Martha, but I did find this, which I believe is the same recipe, just for a whole cake as opposed to cupcakes) a try.

I wasn't able to find all the pistachios necessary, but the only ones that I missed were meant for the garnish, so I wasn't too concerned. Also, let me suggest that if you make these cupcakes there is no need to buy any pistachios that are still in their shell. Just buy a bag of shelled, salted pistachios, and a bag of shelled, unsalted pistachios. If you can find slivered pistachios more power to you. I give you this suggestion because I would have saved myself a lot of time had I bought salted pistachios that were already shelled. It's hard to coax some of those nuts out of their shells. They must be shy.

This recipe also required the use of my food processor, one of the best appliances known to man. Martha tells me that I was supposed to grind the unsalted pistachios into a paste. I was skeptical that this was actually going to work. I'm not sure if I ever got them to a paste consistency, but I did get them to a point where they were ground up so small they sort of stuck together in clumps. And clumps were good enough for me. The salted pistachios were meant to be chopped by hand, meaning there would be small chunks of nuts in the cupcakes. Not my favorite thing. I thought this might be a little difficult due to the size of pistachio nuts, but it was pretty painless, and I chopped them extra small so they wouldn't be as noticeable in the batter. I don't like chunky peanut butter and I don't like chunky cupcakes.

Before I could proceed with the rest of the batter I had to microwave the cream cheese (yes, I forgot to leave it out to get to room temperature, but I did remember the butter and eggs!) so it would soften. It was pretty much straight out of the fridge so it took more than a couple seconds. Once that was accomplished it was smooth sailing. Of course I tested the batter. It wasn't bad.

Once again the batter wasn't at a pourable consistency so I used about 1 1/2 tablespoons of batter to fill each cupcake liner. By a stroke of luck all the cupcakes turned out to be pretty much the same size, but flat, just like the rest of the cupcakes in this "chapter" so far. The cupcakes were baked for 30 total minutes with a turn halfway through the baking time, and I got just as many cupcakes as the recipe said I would. Hip, hip, hooray... or in this case maybe not. After all, I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about these cupcakes. Maybe having 34 of them wouldn't turn out to be a good thing at all.

I let the cupcakes sit overnight in my Cadillac of cupcake carriers so I could ice them the next morning before I took them to work. Martha said it was best to eat the cupcakes the day they were iced. And most of the time I listen to what Martha says... most of the time. The drippy icing was easy and took about 2 minutes to make. I didn't use a lot of it on each cupcake because I didn't want too much icing overflow and cause a mess in my Cadillac (not my car, the cupcake carrier). I had some icing left over, but that's probably because I didn't use as much per cupcake as Martha would have liked.

I went back and forth about whether or not I would garnish the cupcakes at all. Since I was unable to find the specified slivered pistachios, I tried to sliver my own. I was unsuccessful. The pistachios just kept crumbling each time I tried to slice them and I gave up after I was about 2 pistachios in. It just wasn't going to be worth my time. I decided against a garnish for all of the cupcakes other than the one that I photographed for all of you. I didn't want people to be scared away by pistachios on top of the cupcake anyway. I know when I see nuts on a cupcake I go running in the other direction.

I tried the cupcakes twice, like I normally do. Once when they were fresh out of the oven and again when they were completely finished. I liked them better fresh out of the oven. They were still warm and more savory than they were once they had been cooled and iced. They were still okay in their completely finished state, but I didn't love them. I apprehensively took them to work to share (I do not need to eat 34 cupcakes by myself) because I was interested to get feedback since I wasn't particularly fond of them. I was surprisingly pleased that for the most part everyone really enjoyed them. Will I ever make them again? Probably not, unless someone specifically requests them (highly doubtful), but at least now I know what they're like... and I like knowing things.